I have been looking to buy new asic hardware to add to my mining farm and have come to find out that the in hand equipment is over priced. People who are selling existing equipment want to sell it for more then it will ever ROI. Manufacturers like Asicminer and Bitfury are also selling their equipment for more then you will be able to ROI. Unless I'm using the available calculators wrong then its almost pointless to invest more BTC into asic equipment. It has truly become where the people selling the shovels are ripping off the people that are using them to mine with.

Asicminer usb cost .18 btc will only return .10 BTC in its usefull life.Asicminer blade cost 4 btc will only return 3.3 BTC in its usefull life.Bitfury 400gh/s Oct. costs 59.25 at $135 exchange rate will only return 43.31 BTC. That is with a November 1st delivery.

These are figured at a 30% increase every diff change. So why would I give away my bitcoins now in exchange for less bitcoins a year or more from now.

Entertainment value? A lot of mine because we like it.I have a few Asic Pre-orders outstanding, but I believe your assessment is currently correct.

Mining is fun but going to the casino is also fun until you go home with alot less then what you came with. I guess what needs to happen is for people to stop paying for overpriced asics. The problem is that people think that they can magically make their asic ROI.

Entertainment value? A lot of mine because we like it.I have a few Asic Pre-orders outstanding, but I believe your assessment is currently correct.

Mining is fun but going to the casino is also fun until you go home with alot less then what you came with. I guess what needs to happen is for people to stop paying for overpriced asics. The problem is that people think that they can magically make their asic ROI.

A fool and his money are soon parted. The 'stupid money' will eventually dry up, and then ASIC manufacturers will have no choice but lower their pricing to match what the intelligent market is willing to pay.

Of course, it's a fine balance. The question has always been, "Why would a hardware reseller sell equipment for less than he can mine with it?"

However, the 'stupid money' that seems to abound in the bitcoin community is only half the equation. People being willing to buy an item that will never ROI is what makes hardware sellers willing to sell in the first place. If hardware manufacturers can make more by simply running the equipment themselves, why bother with the hassles and logistics of sales, service, shipping, etc, etc?

Anybody who buys hardware at more than ROI is taking a MASSIVE gamble that difficulty is going to drop, or at least remain flat... Unfortunately for them, there seems to be no shortage of people willing to take that bet, and so difficulty continues to climb...

It has truly become where the people selling the shovels are ripping off the people that are using them to mine with.

You do realize that the shovel sellers were the most successful businesses in the various gold rushes, and that several large businesses and fortunes were created by selling shovels instead of mining gold?

Anybody who buys hardware at more than ROI is taking a MASSIVE gamble that difficulty is going to drop, or at least remain flat... Unfortunately for them, there seems to be no shortage of people willing to take that bet, and so difficulty continues to climb...

I like your analysis, especially this last part. The core question is, why do people continue to take that bet? What we are seeing here is an iterated form of the Prisoner's Dilemma which encourages players, who are trying to act rationally in their own self interest, not to cooperate with other players and thus we end up in a net destructive situation.

Obviously, if a single miner bought equipment (defected) and the rest of the mining world chose not to (cooperated), that sole miner would win hugely with massive ROI. But since ALL (or a majority of) miners choose to buy equipment (defect), the net result is that in each round of equipment purchases the majority of miners end up suffering a loss (negative ROI). It is then up to miners who lost in that round to choose whether they want to purchase again in the next round, again risking negative ROI.

This game will continue to iterate until the players with negative ROI drop out of the game due to lack of funds or lack of desire to play and only players with positive ROI remain (I'm ignoring hobby miners here).

Maybe it's just a mind trick but if you spend 50 btc at 100$ rate and you get only 43 at 200 i say you end up better, but here another question arise:why not just buy btc and wait?i think that's the only option till cheaper asics come on market and on more eternal delivery times.

Maybe it's just a mind trick but if you spend 50 btc at 100$ rate and you get only 43 at 200 i say you end up better, but here another question arise:why not just buy btc and wait?i think that's the only option till cheaper asics come on market and on more eternal delivery times.

there's another point - if no-one bought overpriced asic, would BTC price rise? There should be some connection (for example - if I buy expensive miner, I won't sell BTC for low price)